


The Matchmaker

by acidmilkstar



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, Goofiness, Haunting, Sorry Not Sorry, i keep forgetting to include kevin bless his cotton socks, stupid geniuses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-07-28 13:45:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7642909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acidmilkstar/pseuds/acidmilkstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erin accidentally summons a cupid style poltergeist who haunts with intent.</p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There’s a dance they do.  Both literally and figuratively.  

 

The literal dancing starts early on, the day they move in above the Chinese restaurant.Erin is still hyper-alert and wary, the mess and cheerful chaos of their new shared workspace an aggravated assault on her senses after the quiet and orderly world of academia she still can’t quite believe she’s left behind.

 

Holtzmann represents the worst of it.Her workbenches are already strewn with every conceivable - and frankly, inconceivable - kind of electronic detritus.Circuit boards that spark even when she’s not tinkering with them, wires, plugs, soldering irons, small reactors that Erin refuses to consider may in fact be radioactive, except for how they glow.On their first day alone, Holtzmann accidentally causes three lab fires.The fourth Erin suspects is deliberate, since behind the engineer’s yellow goggles she catches a glimpse of blue-eyed manic glee each and every time she induces the physicist’s panic.

 

Erin genuinely isn’t sure at first, whether it’s a leftover grudge Holtzmann holds against her on Abby’s behalf after their long rift, or whether this is just her idea of welcoming her into the fold.Whatever the cause, the engineer delights in making Erin uncomfortable.

 

There are the fires, of course.The small mini-explosions, followed by a satisfied whoop every time Erin jumps, gasps, or flings her whiteboard marker.There’s the sharp warnings, every single time Erin goes to lay a hand on any item at all on Holtzmann’s workbench.Everything is dangerous in their lab, it seems, just mere minutes from exploding.One time it was just a _wrench_.She gets nervous heart palpitations every time she walks into the lab for the first week.

 

And then there’s just the small blonde physicist herself.From the first second they had met, Jillian Holtzmann had sized her up, her eyes boldly wandering from Erin’s neat, conservative hair all the way down her carefully buttoned body to her perfectly feminine heels and had decided the easiest way to knock her off balance was just to _flirt_ with her. 

 

The physicist isn’t sure if the other woman had simply deduced - correctly, unfortunately - that Erin wasn’t flirted with very often, or that - equally correctly - it had been, well…a while _…_ since Erin had indulged with anything remotely approaching sensuality, but to her immense frustration, the tactic works. 

 

People really don’t, in fact, flirt with Dr. Gilbert all that often.Her dress sense, her demeanour, her focus on her work…nothing about the way she interacts with the world invites any kind of flirtation.Which is the whole entire reason, of course, why Holtzmann’s teasing winks and frighteningly direct smirks continue to work on her so well.Erin isn’t used to it; she has no comeback, no defences.She blushes, she stutters, she trips over her own feet.And for a long time Holtz - as Erin has come to think of her now - never lets her rest, always taking it one gleeful step further.

 

And so the dancing - the literal kind - starts from the beginning.As if the lab’s visual and olfactory chaos (competing smells of ozone, iron, oil, burnt plastic and egg noodle) aren’t already enough of an assault on Erin’s senses, Holtzmann brings the noise.Explosions, hammering, humming, all with added pop music, cranked up to ten.Erin finds herself mouth agape, wondering how the hell she’s ever going to manage to concentrate around here and _that’s_ when the engineer breaks into movement.

 

She locks eye contact with the tightly wound physicist and shakes and shimmies and hams it up, not letting Erin go from her challenging blue gaze until the physicist’s face cracks into an awkward smile, and she tentatively wriggles her own shoulders back, wanting badly to be accepted into this - her whole new life - now that the dream of tenure is gone.

 

Holtz reacts ecstatically by airhumping her pelvis, moon-walking back to her desk and grinding suggestively up against what appears to be some kind of semi-assembled missile, her beckoning gaze never wavering an inch.Erin twitches so hard she bangs her knee on her desk, flinches in pain and ceases to dance, her face flaming.

 

Holtzmann cackles and dances away.Erin doesn’t know where to look.When Kevin arrives into their new world, she gratefully looks there instead.Much, _much_ safer. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Eventually though, she adjusts.Close proximity, regular lab dance parties and saving the world from an apocalyptic ghost infestation will do wonders for broadening your comfort zone.The night they save the city Erin lets out her radioactively styled white-blonde hair and lets her new, bonded-for-life family pull her out onto the dance floor, tequila burning up her veins, thronged with admirers, shaking loose.They’re high with their win, with the heated buzz of grateful New Yorkers celebrating alongside them, with their friendship forged in ectoplasmic goo and nuclear energy.They’re powerful, they’re ghost girls, they’re warriors…they’re _drunk_.

 

Erin wonders if this is what it’s like to be Jillian Holtzmann every day of the year.Because it’s Holtz’s dance moves she’s channeling now - bumping, grinding, shimmying, walking down invisible stairs - all of them lodged in her brain from weeks of pretending not to watch.It feels like something vital inside of her, freed.All this with the blonde in question wracked with raucous laughter alongside her.The expression in her bright blue eyes as she gazes at Erin while they dance is some kind of intense combination of amusement, fascination and pride, mixed in with something else unreadable that heats up Erin’s skin just as much as the tequila.

 

“Look at you!” the engineer shouts in her eardrum, barely audible above the pounding music.“Dr. Ghost Girl gives no fucks!” 

 

“I have no fucks to give!” Erin shouts back in agreement, her head tilting back, her arms a whirl, hips free.She feels, rather than hears Holtzmann’s laughter as suddenly the engineer wraps her arms around her in an impulsive shocking hug, hips pressed into hips, full heated body contact and then _bam_ , she’s embraced all round, as Abby and Patty pile on, followed on by several strangers, all drunk with glee,near-death experiences,gratitude and, well - alcohol - and Erin has never felt so loved.She thinks she feels Holtz’s lips against her hair somewhere in the scrum.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She doesn’t remember getting home that night.Early the next morning her headache wakes before she does.Her mouth feels like kitty-litter and there’s a twinge in her back that would bring down a class IV apparition. This might have something to do with the fact that she somehow found her way to the workshop couch rather than her bed before she passed out. 

 

Her head and feet are both cushioned on something warm.Cracking an eye open and suppressing an agonised groan she glances down.Her feet are propped on the long muscular lap of their equally passed out beefcake receptionist.Abby is on the floor, facedown, glasses half off and Patty is sprawled sideways in the adjacent armchair, legs akimbo.Which means that the firm abdomen Erin is currently using as a pillow… _mmpf…_ carefully craning her head back, she takes in the image of a sleeping Holtzmann - rumpled jumpsuit and all - and finds herself freezing very still. 

 

Holtz looks different when she sleeps.Softer, somehow more human and startlingly vulnerable.Erin notices the length of her eyelashes, the fact that her cheeks are flushed, her pink lips are slightly parted and her hair is a wild mess.

 

She knows she should get up, that probably workmates shouldn’t, well, _cuddle_ exactly, but if she just shifts her hips a couple of inches to the right and pulls up her knees, then the back twinge is…worth it.She closes her eyes again and loses herself in the sensation of the rise and fall of Holtz’s abdomen as she breathes.Just before she drifts off, she thinks she feels a warm hand, tangling itself loosely in her still bright white hair.

 

* * *

 

 

After that, is when the figurative dancing starts.Because Erin, for the life of her, does not know what this means.

 

Because Kevin - beautiful sculpted Kevin - is a perfectly safe crush to have.It’s…mindless, to say the least.There’s no risk of romance or failure or conflict or disaster, or worst of all _love_ , in a crush like that.She lets herself drool from a distance; the melancholy waste of a body like that driven by the brain of a sweet toasted marshmallow is an enjoyable and allowable amusement in their daily lives.But a crush on Jillian Holtzmann?That’s just a mid-level explosion waiting to happen.

 

They’re colleagues.Real ones.They’re the kinds of friends who save each other’s lives on an alarmingly frequent basis.They’re part of a small connected circle of bonded together humans whose job market is niche, to say the least.And now they’re basically roommates, one level of the fire station having been converted into a warehouse apartment with four very different living zones.

 

This crush is inappropriate.This crush is _doomed._ Erin knows it has got to be temporary.Crushes always are.She just needs to keep it under wraps until it goes away. 

 

And so their other dance begins.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There are two hands, on both of Erin’s hips, gently moving her aside as Holtzmann reaches past her in the kitchen to grab a bottle of beer from the fridge.It’s nothing…it’s really not.Erin has seen the engineer grab Patty and smoosh big kisses on either one of her cheeks, just because she’d picked up the right kind of cylindrical tubing discarded by a building site.Holtz is physical, that’s all. 

 

Patty had only laughed and squeezed the engineer’s shoulders with affection, called her crazy and walked away.Erin’s cheeks flame red and she almost drops the beer she’s offered when their fingers brush.Holtzmann leans in to chink their bottles together and Erin’s eyes drop to warm curved lips as the beer bottle meets them. 

 

There’s a do-si-do that happens in the hallway when they’re walking toward each other and Erin tries to step right to move around her, only now they’ve made eye contact and it’s all bright blue gazes and confusing body language because then Holtz steps right at the same time, so Erin steps left to avoid collision, just as Holtz does the same.And then Erin’s laughing, awkwardly, while Holtz just glowers at her seriously, before she reaches out with her hands and presses Erin slowly against the wall so she can pass, turning back with a devastating wink and a smirk as she does.Erin can’t breathe normally for the next ten minutes but she’s pretty sure she covers it well.

 

There’s a complex pizza ritual that happens, where Erin calculates ahead of time precisely the number of trips it will take four people to get five pizzas, three garlic breads, two salads, five plates, a bottle of wine and four glasses set out on the coffee table and in which direction she needs to be moving in order for her to naturally wind up sitting on the couch next to Holtz, without it looking as if it were somehow planned. 

 

Holtzmann doesn’t notice, she’s sure, but she steals olives right off Erin’s slice with her salty bare fingers, which the physicist pretends to protest.  The blonde's easy possessiveness and complete lack of boundaries makes her squirm.If the engineer notices that sometimes it’s her glass of wine Erin reaches for and sips, she doesn’t mention it.

 

And sometimes ghostbusting itself feels like dancing.The four of them know each other so well by now that they’re like one entity moving in synch.They each have their roles, their strengths and their rituals.And number one is that Holtzmann always has Erin’s back.She has them all of course; every single one of them looks out for the others and Erin has done her share of butt-kicking and ass-saving herself.But if she stumbles or a ghost rounds on her unexpectedly, she no longer even has to turn her head to know that the proton blast that arcs around from behind her to neutralise the threat always comes from Holtz’s gun. 

 

This does not, however, stop her from taking vast pleasure in Erin’s uncanny ability to always wind up the target of ectoplasm.Erin has come to accept that getting almost drowned in canon blasts of cold green goop will come with a side of Jillian Holtzmann’s manic laughter, but at least on one occasion this has been accompanied by her hands as well, wiping at Erin’s face and neck and hair as she cackles.It’s almost worth it, that time.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes though, Erin has it in her to wish for a little less dancing around each other and a little more space.Because where can a crush go to fade when there’s no room to move?It’s not that she wants Holtz to go away; that’s just the problem.She wants far more of her than she should and it’s getting seriously problematic.The crush isn’t easing; it’s intensifying…and every time she turns around, Holtzmann is just _there._ Catching things on fire, dancing like the sexiest idiot Erin has ever met, leaving long blonde hairs in the sink, taking out the trash too late, laughing raucously, frowning over circuit boards, chomping on junk food and waking the house up with 3am explosions or the thunder of the occasional personal dance party on the second floor…Erin is aggravated, irritated, addicted and hooked. 

 

The fire station had once seemed so spacious, but sometimes Erin daydreams about her quiet office back at Columbia and the perfectly white sealed apartment she’d kept superbly neat all on her own.She doesn’t really think she’d trade for it but if it wasn’t for their overly entangled lives this crush wouldn’t have such a stranglehold on her every waking moment.The four of them are essentially in a four-way sexless marriage: adoring, supportive, squabbling and _stuck._

 

It becomes stifling very quickly.Working together, living together, fighting ghosts together.Patty is the first to break, going out on a date with a firefighter one night and not returning for six days. 

 

“I’m owed a _holiday_ ,” she announces with no room for argument when Abby tries to haul her over the coals for skipping out on them without notice.“Ain’t no contract I remember signing that says twenty-four hours, seven days a week, on-call, ectoplasm in all my crevices.You _all_ need a holiday,” she grouses.“Or to get laid yourselves, grumpy goddamn bitches.” 

 

Abby rolls her eyes and sucks in a breath, about to let loose with one of those zingers that Erin remembers all too well from their days as college roommates when a voice pipes up from across the lab.

 

“Speak for yourself,” Holtzmann smirks into view, spinning lazily on her chair, having pushed off from her workbench, her toes pointed to the wall and arms raised like a ballerina. Her slender wrists are surprisingly graceful despite the work-gloves.The wheels hit the back of the couch and she pushes off again, elbows and hands shaped into a perfect vogue as she sails back, her hips bumping off the seat to get her final momentum back to her workbench.Erin gapes after her. 

 

The tension drains from the room as Abby snorts.Patty shrugs, fighting a grin.

 

“Clearly we’re not talking about you, Lez Cassanova,” she drawls.“One of these days I’m going to turn your bedroom into my very own walk-in closet.Be a better use of space since you’re too busy bed-hopping around the whole damn neighbourhood to ever go to sleep in it.”

 

Erin’s stomach clenches.Holtzmann’s sexuality has never been addressed directly within her hearing.She’s assumed, of course, made her own conclusions from the younger woman’s swagger, her suggestive eye contact with female humans - such as Erin - and the fact she directs a higher level of sensuality toward her machinery than to Kevin, but as to what she did with that sexuality, Erin had somehow neglected to imagine. 

 

She’d thought - hoped, really - that Holtz was too intensely focussed on her work to worry about dating.And dating she wasn’t, surely, because when would she have the time?They were - all of them - here, always, working, building, planning, ghostbusting, eating together, sleeping at night in their own beds, alone, just like Erin was…weren’t they?

 

But Patty’s suite is the one right next to Holtz’s.And Holtz only hums to herself in response to Patty’s pronouncement, a little knowing grin sneaking around the edges of her welding mask.

 

“Who is it this week, Holtzy?” Patty throws a stray piece of popcorn at her.“Alice?Elena?Caterina? _Helen?_ ”Holtzmann only shrugs, poking her tongue out between her teeth and picks up another wire.“Elena again?!” Patty looks incredulous. 

 

Holtz shimmies her shoulders at her friend and leans in to turn up her music, rocking her hips up and arching her back until she is dancing half-prone in her chair, her eyes locked smirkingly with Patty’s, the two of them in a private joke.She doesn’t look at Erin.

 

Abby touches Erin’s shoulder, her voice low beneath the newly pounding beat. 

 

“Are you okay, hon?” she asks, a frown on her face.Erin flinches.

 

“What?No!I mean- yes!I’m fine.Why are you- why are you even asking me that?”She sits up straight, gathering up her books.Abby looks at her doubtfully.

 

“It’s just that you look kind of-“ she starts.Erin is already on her feet.A book slips out of her pile and hits the floor.She bends to pick it up and drops two more which she grabs at, losing her markers in the process.Everything regathered she grasps them to her chest, flushed and sweaty.

 

“I’ve got a headache that’s all,” her voice is businesslike.“I think it’s the smoke,” she nods towards the small fire Holtzmann is gleefully extinguishing, no doubt caused by a blowtorch being used as a dance prop. 

 

Erin flees.Abby watches her go with a small sigh.Holtzmann cranks the music higher, focusing extremely intently on soldering two small wires together.Patty raises her eyebrows at Abby and both women exchange a barely perceptible shrug.

 

 

* * *

 

Erin drops her books in her room but she can’t settle.Normally she’d just get to work, losing herself in formulas and the kinds of problems she actually has a chance of solving, but right now she can’t keep still.Grabbing her jacket, she marches out of the fire station and into the evening air.

 

She’s grateful for the sharp wind outside because it gives her a good reason for why her eyes and nose are suddenly streaming.She isn’t sniffling over Holtz for pete’s sake!Because _that_ is just a crush.This is a good development!If Holtzmann is dating - dating every single human woman in the greater NYC area _except_ for her - then great!There is no danger in this crush.It is clearly not reciprocated and those teasing winks and innuendoes and little touches all mean nothing and their friendship is safe and that’s just wonderful!Erin wipes her eyes ferociously and enters in through the wrought iron gate.

 

It might seem macabre to anyone else that her favourite place to walk is the local cemetery, but Erin has made her peace with ghosts a long time ago.It’s the only green space within walking distance of the fire station and she appreciates the peace and quiet, shielded from view by the big weeping willows.Privacy is hard to come by in her life these days, but today there is no one else inside the gates. 

She wanders for a while, her eyes still watering despite the shelter from the wind, until she drops down on an old, semi-collapsed gravestone and swipes at her eyes fiercely.

 

“Arghhhhh!” she groans in frustration, glaring at the crumbling statue of a winged baby angel that tops the grave and smacking at the stone beneath her with her hands.“This is so stupid!It’s not like I’m in _love_ with her or something!Love is…love is _stupid!”_ She smacks the stone again.“I don’t _need_ love!I need work, and friends, and…purpose, and connection and- and work, and I _have_ all those things.Screw love!”Her fist thumps the stone a third time and she feels a little better at the sting.

 

Wiping her eyes, she pulls out a tissue and blows her nose ferociously.She is resolved.She will work harder, avoid Holtzmann better, deny these stupid feelings, ignore this pointless crush and it will wither and die a natural death without her having to risk any more stupid pointless eye leakage.Everything will get better.She stands up and without a backwards glance walks purposefully back to the fire station.If she is aware of a cold spot lingering on the back of her neck, she puts it down to the weather. 

 

She puts her key in the door and turns it in the lock.Instantly there is a bang above her head that makes her jump, as the light above the door explodes in a small shower of sparks. 

 

“Damnit Holtz,” she mutters as she steps through the door, knowing for sure it is the fault of some kind of mad science experiment being conducted upstairs. 

 

Throughout the whole of the fire station, the lights flicker.From her nest on the couch on the second floor, quietly perusing a large textbook, Holtzmann looks up as the room around her disappears and reappears once more as the lights settle.An icy cold draught drifts through the room from nowhere in particular.She shivers.She wraps her blanket tighter and gets back to her book.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

Erin wakes blearily.She’d been dreaming something…something entirely too good.There’d been a warm set of lips at her throat, hands on her skin and… what else?Oh yes, a mess of soft blonde hair.She sits bolt upright in her bed. _Damnit._

 

Shaking her head and regathering her determination, she slides out of bed, shoves her feet into slippers and heads for the bathroom.She gets within a foot of the closed door when - _bam! -_ it blows open of its own accord, so hard it bounces slightly against the door jamb.She jumps.So does the misty figure inside.

 

“Well _guten tag,_ sunshine,” Holtzmann’s blue eyes are wide but she recovers well for someone wearing nothing but a puff of fragrant shower steam and a very small green towel.“If you wanted to scrub my back you only had to say.”

 

“I’m sorry-“ Erin starts, her face flaming.“I didn’t- I didn’t actually-“ she glances at the door in confusion, anything to avert her eyes from the barely towel clad woman in front of her.She goes to leave, but Holtz stops the door with her hand and grins out at her around the toothpaste foam Erin notices covers pretty much her whole chin.

 

“No please,” she shoves the toothbrush back in her mouth, “don’t go now,” she mumbles cheerily around the brush, her grin overly wide, foam everywhere.Erin shakes her head as she tries to smile back and edge away.She’s aware that her face is pillow creased and make-up free as well as flaming, that she has bed hair and her flannel pyjamas have algebraic formulas on them that are actually just fashion statements and don’t even make mathematical sense.She’s a rumpled, sleep-addled dork, nothing at all like an Elena or a Caterina, as far as she’s refused to imagined them.

 

And yet Holtz doesn’t seem to mind it at all.She holds her hand up, beckoning at Erin to wait, while she spits, rinses and wipes her face on a towel.Erin tries to keep her eyes averted but _skin, oh god, so much gleaming damp soft skin,_ and without her goggles or jewellery or eyeliner or watch or…clothes…and with her hair loose and escaping in damp wisps, Holtzmann looks like a whole other human.She’s luminescent, otherworldly, and there is no reasonable, rational way that she should be eyeing Erin quite as warmly or approvingly as she is.

 

“All yours, ghost girl,” the small blonde presses past the physicist, their bodies brushing and Erin goes hot and then cold as she’s aware of a brief sensation of warmth and moisture, and a soft hit of cinnamon that she wants to breathe in forever. 

 

It seems she has no control at all of her body - which has frozen, still halfway to the door - or her neck, which cranes around to catch a glimpse of bare legs disappearing up under the towel, the shape of the engineer’s body far more evident than in her usual layered outfits or ghostbusting jumpsuit.Catching her out, the blonde glances back, looking far more pleased with herself than aggrieved in response to the stricken physicist’s gaze.Erin darts into the bathroom and leans back on the closed door, her heart pounding. _What just happened?_

 

She hadn’t so much as touched the door and Holtz had seemed every bit as startled as she had.There is no point explaining that to the engineer now however. _I didn’t just try and perve at you!The door just opened of its own accord…and…then I perved at you._ Oh god.There must be a serious draft issue in the fire station if the doors could just fly open at any moment like that.The whole place this morning is so _cold_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She struggles to maintain any eye contact at all with Holtzmann that morning, and the engineer disappears early from her workbench in their shared lab, heading upstairs to what the other ghostbusters refer to as “Holtz’s lair.”The whole of the second floor is a cause for concern, but they try and trust her, because despite the clear and obvious instability of the room full of glowing and beeping machinery, nothing has exploded yet.Well, nothing major. 

 

The other women mostly leave her alone up there, but the nature of their work is collaborative, which is how Holtz has scored two workspaces in the first place.Upstairs is where the serious work happens.Erin herself assists with the theory, while Holtzmann translates this into hard metal, lights and explosive propulsion.It’s one of her favourite things, if she’s honest, the easy way she can transform Holtz’s ideas into formulas that flow from her marker onto the whiteboard and the way the spark catches in those blue eyes as the engineer excitedly begins to grab at wires and circuit boards and Erin alternates between calling out numbers and watching Holtzmann’s deft hands as she works.

 

Mid-morning she realises she can’t find one of her key notebooks.She could have sworn she had it on her own desk, but after turning her own workspace over looking for it, she has no choice but to venture upstairs to see if she’d left it behind in what she think of as “her” corner of Holtz’s lair.

 

At the top of the stairs she pauses, because Holtz at work is a sight she can never quite get used to.There’s the ubiquitous trashy pop music and piles of junk food, the bopping head, the shimmying shoulders and the unattended blow torch, and yet despite all this, the engineer is seriously focussed. 

 

A flutter starts up in her chest, because watching Jillian Holtzmann’s absorbed expression she knows this woman is her kindred spirit.Erin’s one boyfriend during her PhD years accused her of being so focussed on her work she wouldn’t notice if a bomb went off beside her.Holtz has literally a small fire starting next to her she seems unaware of, before with her left hand she smothers it absently with a rag, her gaze never shifting an inch from the problem in her right.Erin’s brain may as well be ectoplasm for how hopelessly gooey it feels at the sight.

 

Stepping forward she quietly thumps the smouldering rag against the bench top to extinguish the small remaining flames growing at its edges.Holtz looks up and her focus breaks instantly, a grin breaking across her face at the sight of her.Erin thinks she could bask in Holtz’s expression for a long, long time, so very quickly, she spins away toward the pile of her textbooks and papers a safe six feet away.

 

“Forgot a notebook,” she calls over her shoulder in case Holtzmann gets any other idea as to why the physicist can’t stay away from her lab. 

 

“Oh, you don’t need an excuse to come see me, baby girl,” Holtz sings out, her voice deliberately and yet casually seductive.And it’s _nothing -_ she says this kind of thing to her all the time - but Erin stiffens, because she really just needs this all to just, please, _stop_.She straightens up and turns on her heel.

 

“Jillian,” she says sharply, making Holtz jerk, her eyes comically wide.No one calls her that.“This morning was not- I had _no_ intention of-“

 

 _Crash!_ Both women duck automatically as the lamp next to Erin throws itself from the desk beside her and hits the wall three feet above Holtz’s head.They stare at each other, eyes wide.

 

“What the _f-”_ Holtz starts before suddenly books start flying, pieces of electronics lift up and are flung at the walls, and both women hit the floor. 

 

“Holtz!” Erin shouts in alarm.Everything up here is strictly experimental; all their functioning weapons are downstairs in their armoury.Amid the flying projectiles, Erin quickly deduces that there is definitely something supernatural going on in the suddenly icy air as she crawls at speed toward the safety of Holtz’s work bench where she’s sheltering.Holtzmann grabs at her arms, hauling her in and they crouch, wide-eyed as the lab turns into a maelstrom of flying projectiles. 

 

“Poltergeist?!” Erin gasps, and suddenly the work bench above them lifts up and tips over, uncovering them to whatever force is in the room.Holtz grabs Erin’s wrist and runs, hunching ahead through the flying debris to the sturdy storage cupboard that’s bolted into the wall.Shoving Erin in first she pulls the heavy steel door shut behind them, and the noise is deafening as items propel themselves against the door with a clang. 

 

The cupboard is not large and Erin finds herself uncomfortably wedged between a sharp edged pile of partially assembled gadgets and the rapidly breathing body of the woman she’s been trying unsuccessfully to avoid. 

 

In the dim light, her eyes slowly adjust and in the mechanical glow of the machinery she can see that Holtz’s forehead is grazed where something flying hit her.Before she can stop herself she’s got her hands on the blonde’s face, examining her.The engineer’s breathing does not slow down.

 

“You’re hurt,” Erin breathes, her stomach clenching at the thought.Holtz’s grin is reassuring.

 

“Anything for you baby,” she smirks, trying to break the tension.Erin’s hands do not leave her face.Suddenly the noise stops and the room is silent.Her hands fall to Holtzmann’s shoulders.They look at each other in the dim blue glow.Their faces are so close Erin can smell the sweet scent of what she thinks might be gummy bears on her breath.

 

“Has it stopped?” her eyes search Holtz’s. _Bang!_ Another projectile hits the door, making Erin’s hands clench on the engineer’s shoulders.Somehow Holtzmann’s hands are on her waist.

 

“Guess not,” the blonde wagers.Another projectile hits the door, but this time, neither of them looks away from the other’s face.The air feels very close. 

 

“Erin!” comes the cry from somewhere in the lab.“Holtz!What the hell is happening?!”It’s Abby.Erin and Holtz both drop their hands and turn towards the door. 

 

“We’re in here!” Erin shouts.“Be careful, we think there’s some kind of polterg-“ The rest of her words are lost in another hail of projectiles. 

 

“Don’t worry!” they faintly hear Abby shout.“I’ll go get Patty!We’ll get this thing, just stay put!” 

 

There’s an uncomfortable heat on her back and Erin lurches forward, her head craning to try and see what she’s wedged against. 

 

“What’s _in_ here?” she gasps.Holtz makes a weird expression.

 

“Ummm, yeah…” she starts.“Best maybe not to touch that.”Erin stares at her.

 

“Is it radioactive?” she hisses.Holtz makes her best attempt to shrug in the limited space.

 

“I mean, a little?No more than an x-ray…well, a _few_ x-rays,” she hedges.Erin launches forward, away from the death trap she was resting against. 

 

“Holtz!” she complains, over the din of the projectiles.She tries to shove for a little more space when an external force suddenly rocks the storage cupboard against its bolts, causing her to tumble into the engineer’s body and they both hit the floor. 

 

Erin is distantly aware of the sound outside the cupboard suddenly ceasing, but mostly she’s aware of just three things. 

 

One: she’s on top of Holtzmann.Two: their faces are very, very close together.Three: there’s a firm thigh wedged very intimately between her own. 

 

Holtzmann apparently has no witty flirtatious line for this one.Her eyes are startled and her breath is coming fast.Neither of them can move; there’s nowhere _to_ move and neither of them seem to want to try.The engineer’s gaze is unreadable, but Erin thinks she definitely seems to be looking at her lips.She thinks for a minute that maybe she might be dying, because her heart is hammering against her ribcage and the very worst thing is that there’s no way to hide it, because her chest is firmly pressed right up against Holtzmann’s. 

 

She opens her mouth to speak, to say something, _anything_ to cut the tension, to escape, to back out, but the engineer’s hand tightens on her waist, cutting off any words she can think to say.And then it’s happening.Holtz is tilting her chin up and as Erin’s eyes fall closed she feels the heat of a soft exhaled breath against her lips.

 

The cupboard doors spring open.

 

There’s a pause as they adjust to the bright light flooding them and a silence, as Abby and Patty take in the view.

 

“Are you alright?” Abby asks, her voice worried, but her face somehow amused.Erin rolls off the engineer and clambers to her feet, her legs unarguably wobbly.Holtzmann props herself up on her elbows and grins lazily at their rescuers.Erin could punch her.She looks so poised while Erin is incriminatingly flushed pink.

 

“Our mighty heroes,” the blonde clutches at her chest like an overcome southern belle, before accepting the hand up Patty offers her. 

 

“What _happened?_ ” Abby asks, as they all gaze around the lab.It looks like a hurricane has been through it.There’s a couple of scorch marks across the wall which attests to their firing of proton guns, which somehow Erin had completely missed while she was straddling Holtz’s thigh. 

 

“Did you get the ghost?” she demands now. 

 

“Oh yeah, baby,” Patty’s grin is beatific.She taps the containment device with her foot.“Weird-ass baby angel ghost,” she explains.“Fluttering around and giggling.That shit is just _wrong_.”Erin frowns.The image seems familiar somehow. 

 

“Well,” Abby reassures them.“At least it’s all over now,” she surveys the mess around them with a resigned shrug.

 

“And thank the _lord_ for that,” pipes up Holtzmann, fanning herself dramatically.Erin looks at her sharply, because something in Holtz’s tone sounds…not glad?The engineer meets her eye and when no one else is looking, she winks at her and smirks.

 

Erin’s jaw drops and she turns away, her face still hot.Holtz had nearly _kissed_ her and somehow it is all still just a big joke to her.She focusses on cleaning up in order not to let her eyes fill again.She manages to avoid being anywhere within three feet of the engineer for the rest of the day. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

By bedtime she’s moved from miserable to fuming.Up until now she’d been willing to assume that Holtzmann’s flirting had been innocent, without intent.But now she’s taken it a big step too far beyond Erin’s comfort zone.To deliberately toy with someone who is supposed to be her friend demonstrates a callous streak that Erin has never dreamed the engineer of being capable of.She tosses and turns restlessly but she can’t sleep. 

 

Sometime well past midnight she gives up and goes downstairs to make herself a cup of camomile tea.Mug in hand she wanders into their living room feeling lost, only to nearly bump headfirst into the object of her distress coming the other way.Holtzmann freezes and looks oddly alarmed, and Erin notes she’s fully dressed, wearing boots and a jacket with her keys in hand.She remembers Patty’s teasing about where and how the engineer spends her nights and her dumb traitorous heart sinks.

 

“Going out?” she asks coldly.Holtz just shrugs, avoiding her eyes.“Kind of late for a date isn’t it?” Erin’s voice is unrecognisable, even to herself.Holtz cocks her head in what looks like bafflement, but she doesn’t respond.She simply offers Erin a small, unreadable smile and steps aside, heading for the stairs.Before she can catch herself, Erin puts down her cup, reaches for the fire pole - flannel pyjamas and all - and heads Holtz off before she can reach the front door.

 

“Coming with?” Holtzmann asks in surprise.Erin glares at her, finally at the end of her tether. 

 

“You- you nearly _kissed_ me, today!” she accuses, standing between the blonde and the door.The engineer looks trapped, catching her lip between her teeth and eyeing Erin like she might just be dangerous. 

 

“I’m…sorry?” she asks, as if she’s not sure what the right response should be.She glances down at the keys in her hand, very obviously wishing she could figure out how best to get Erin to move out of her way. 

 

And Erin hates it, _hates_ it, because here it is: the moment that even though she has tried to avoid it, this crush - this feeling that absolutely _isn’t_ messy, growing, unrequited love - is going to wreck their friendship anyway.Something inside her crumples.She lets her gaze fall and her shoulders droop and she’s just about to step aside and let Holtzmann go on out to her date and out of her heart forever when a muffled explosion sounds from upstairs. 

 

They look at each other in alarm, but before they can turn to investigate, an icy cold breeze shoots through them and all the unfastened additional safety bolts slam forcefully shut on the front door behind them.They both stare at each other, and Erin reaches up experimentally to try to pull one of the bolts open. 

 

“Don’t!” Holtz grabs at Erin’s sleeve, but it’s too late.The bolt singes her hand and she cries out in pain.The engineer grasps her wrist for the second time that day and pulls her away from the door and back up the stairs, towing her into the kitchen and thrusting her hand under the cold tap.She doesn’t let go of Erin’s wrist, even though the water is splashing her sleeve.

 

“What the hell is happening?” Erin can’t take anymore.“ _Another_ ghost?!” 

 

“Stay right here,” Holtzmann tells her - and it’s not so much an order as a beseeching request, her eyes huge and serious, and Erin finds herself nodding dumbly.The engineer lets go of her arm and heads for the weapons cage.She takes off up the stairs to the lab, proton gun in hand.Patty and Abby both fly into the kitchen, pulling on robes above their pyjamas, looking sleep-fuddled and alarmed.

 

“What was that?!What happened to your hand?!” Abby cries.Erin shakes her head furiously and gestures desperately upstairs.

 

“I’m fine!Go help Holtz!”

 

Both Patty and Abby follow suit, grabbing weapons and running up to the lab, Abby barely managing not to trip over her fluffy bunny slippers.The second they disappear Erin goes to the freezer and grabs out one of the icepacks they always keep on hand _in case of Holtzmann_ as Patty put it when she bought them.Wrapping it around her hand she awkwardly grasps a proton pack and wrestles it on, following the others up.

 

All three of the women are standing around something on the floor, looking baffled, Patty covering them by pointing her proton gun in every direction.Erin sprints up to them.

 

“What is it?”No one responds.Abby gestures helplessly at the remains of the ghost containment device on the floor.

 

“It…got out,” she whispers.“Whatever it was we trapped today, it got out…”

 

Erin feels a chill up her spine.Nothing has ever escaped one of their containment devices before.Whatever this is that’s haunting them, it’s crazy strong. 

 

“You’re telling me there’s a creepy winged baby ghost strong enough to take down one of Holtzy’s devices and it’s hanging around in here?” Patty’s eyes are wide.“Oh man, we need to go sleep in a hotel room tonight.” 

 

“I don’t-“ Holtzmann is so rattled she loses the rest of her sentence.“I-“ her mouth hangs open and she makes a series of complicated hand gestures that no one understands.Except Abby.

 

“It’s not your fault, Holtzy,” she says softly.“We didn’t know this was possible.”

 

“It could put you in danger,” Holtz is as serious as the physicist has ever seen her.She’s addressing the group, but her eyes are fixed on Erin's fuzzy bed socks. 

 

“Okay, stop!” Erin is starting to get seriously pissed at this ghost.Patty’s scared, freakin’ Holtz is scared, even Abby looks concerned and she loves damn ghosts, the wilier the better.“Please!We’re the ghostbusters!This thing should be scared of _us_!We’re not running away from this.It’s only a little creepy baby...with wings!” 

 

The other ghostbusters look at her dubiously.Patty looks a little squeamish.Abby sighs and nods.

 

“It’s one hell of a strong creepy baby,” she cautions.“If our containment devices aren’t enough, maybe we just have to figure out what it is it wants,” she suggests. 

 

“Formula?” Holtz glowers, somewhat recovered and making finger guns at the ceiling.“Come out you little brat,” she shouts at the room.“Imma change your diaper so _bad!_ ” 

 

Everyone snorts at that.Erin meets her eye and can’t help a tiny smile.The look on Holtz’s face is one of spectacular relief.Erin hates that she can’t even hate her for long enough to get rid of the heat still swirling in her chest when she thinks about the near-miss of their near-kiss.She rolls her eyes and this time Holzmann’s grin is breathtaking.

 

They all troop down the stairs, weapons at the ready and since no one is able to go back to sleep they all sit down to strategise, research and plan.Abby scolds her for not cooling her burn for long enough.Patty and Holtz trade baby ghost insults.Erin thinks in that moment that she might be able to deal with just about anything, if it means she can keep this little family of hers intact. 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

The research that night is not productive.It’s 2am for starters.They’re all too wired to sleep but too tired to make much headway. 

 

Holtzmann is determined to build a stronger more impenetrable containment device for the spirit.Erin thinks from her determined frown line that maybe her pride is a little hurt. 

 

Abby is leafing through page after page of supernatural literature about poltergeists, their motivations and reasons for becoming malevolent. 

 

Patty is thinking laterally and winds up on a whole other tangent.

 

“Cupid!” she blurts out around 4am and all three women look her way, nonplussed.“Look familiar?” she prompts them.She turns her laptop screen toward them; her google image search has pulled up screeds of Valentine’s Day cards with cartoons and drawings of…winged baby angels.

 

“Ugh, gross,” is Holtzmann’s barely attentive response.Erin side-eyes her.

 

“What’s so wrong with Valentine’s Day?”she feels oddly put out.Holtz pretends not to hear her.Patty snorts for no good reason Erin can think of.

 

“Well, I’d say you’re onto something,” Abby looks thoughtful, “except for how there’s no such thing as a ghost of an ancient roman god,” she points out.“Besides, a ghostly cupid wouldn’t be malevolent like this, would it?”Patty just shrugs.

 

“I don’t know,” she hedges.“Love is strange…” 

 

Erin sighs heavily.She’s supposed to be assisting Holtzmann with formulas that will exponentially increase the strength of the containment device but every single thing about this day has left her drained.She doesn’t think she can ever remember being this tired and the numbers are starting to swim before her eyes.Quietly she lets her notebook drop into her lap and curls her knees up beside her on the sofa so she can rest her head on one of the cushions. 

 

Holtzmann looks up from her own end of the sofa and as if Erin’s surrender to exhaustion gives her the permission she’s been waiting for, she stretches her own legs out, arches her back and collapses down with an almighty groan. 

 

“Increase the electromagnetic field,” she mumbles at the ceiling.“Magnify the extrinsic pressures…” 

 

The room fades out. 

 

Erin is unsure how long she’s drifted off.She’s aware at some point of a blanket settling around her shoulders.She half awakes again to the sound of murmured voices.

 

“Oh come _on_!You think this is a coincidence?!” It’s Patty’s voice, uncharacteristically low.“A ghost that looks like cupid and it just happens to be throwing shit at _these_ two geniuses?Hell, _I_ want to throw shit at them!I mean, look at them!For a bunch of nerds y’all are crazy stupid sometimes.”

 

Erin scrunches her face further into the cushion, unsure if maybe she’s dreaming.She’s aware of Holtz’s feet tucked into the back of her knees.

 

“Don’t lump me in with those two,” Abby protests softly.“Just because they’re big ole clueless dorks doesn’t mean I’m completely blind.”

 

“So you see my point,” Patty hisses.Their voices drop lower into an unintelligible murmur and Erin falls further into her dreams.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s late morning when she wakes up properly, light streaming in through the high windows of the fire station.She’s alone in the living room.

 

After a long shower and a strong coffee she wanders out to join the others.Patty is still reading furiously and frowning.Abby is hooking up newly minted versions of her PKE meter at all the entry points to the lab.By the sound of the music thudding from above, Holtzmann’s determination to catch and contain this thing has not faded.

 

Mid-afternoon Patty announces she’s off to the library chasing a hunch. She’s come across a local area stone carver who’d died in the nineteenth century and whose main claim to fame were depictions of cherubic angels. 

 

Abby is restless, so she decides to go along, after Erin reassures her at least five separate times that she’ll keep her proton gun at the ready and check in on Holtzmann at regular intervals.Abby is particularly insistent on this point.There have been no further signs of disturbance since the previous night so Erin convinces her they’ll be just fine.Her friend’s hovering and sideways glances - like there’s something she wants to say but can’t quite figure out how - are starting to get to her.She’s relieved when the downstairs door bangs shut.

 

Even though part of her wants to defy orders, she heads up to the second floor almost straight away.She needs to check in with the engineer’s progress to see if her calculations need tweaking anyway.It’s really _not_ because she wants to see Holtzmann’s face.

 

The face in question is hidden from view as Erin rounds the top of the stairs to the sight of the engineer sitting on the floor on her knees, her chin propped on her hands as she stares down at a tangle of wires before her.Notes and blueprints, pieces of circuitry and a soldering iron lay scattered around her.There’s not a trace of pop music anywhere in range.

 

“Holtz?” she asks tentatively.The engineer’s head snaps up and Erin’s breath catches at the lost look in her eyes.It’s fleeting.Erin sees the moment that Jillian Holtzmann slips from her private world back to her public face and something in her chest catches.

 

“Well, hello _ma’am_ ,” she looks Erin over appraisingly.To her immense frustration she flushes.She’s wearing simple suit pants and a short-sleeved blouse tucked in on a Tuesday afternoon but the way Holtz is smiling at her it’s as if she’s just presented herself for a first date and the engineer is about to ask her to twirl.Erin decides to ignore this.

 

“How’s the containment device?” she nods at the mess scattering the floor.Holtz groans and lets herself fall backwards so she’s lying on the floor, her arm draped over her eyes.

 

“It’s perfect,” she says seriously to the ceiling.“It cannot be improved.”She sighs and sits up, looking at the physicist with an expression of fresh determination, though Erin notes the fatigue on her face.“We’re going to have to start from scratch.I’m thinking a time portal device.Maybe in neon.” 

 

Erin isn’t sure if she’s serious - with Dr. Holtzmann, anything is possible - but she nods and heads over to her desk across the room to get started on her own hunch regarding a way to use forcefields in their favour.She is just about to sit down on her chair when she senses a presence and yelps with shock when she turns to find Holtz has materialised immediately to her left, holding a small metal dome, a serious expression on her face.

 

“ _God,_ Holtz-“ she lets drop her hand which has flown to her chest.

 

“I made you something,” the engineer ignores Erin’s flapping.She places the dome on the desk in front of her and steps back, tucking a strand of hair behind her goggles.Erin is used to this.Holtz is a constant gift giver, sometimes presenting her treats to her fellow ghostbusters with a speech and a flourish, sometimes leaving them outside their bedroom doors in the night the way a cat might.They are invariably highly personally tailored and extremely, terrifyingly deadly.

 

Erin lifts the lid off the dome and finds a miniature, perfectly formed…cake.Her jaw drops.She looks up at the engineer who seems oddly nervous.She sits down to look at the cake more closely, and then she sees it.Her eyes blur with sudden tears.

 

“Spring Beauty Cake?” she whispers, her eyes locked to the gift.The small round cake is decorated with delicate whirls of light pink fluffy icing, with jewelled slivers of real strawberries glowing through.Tucked symmetrically into the puffs of pink are tiny delicate flowers. _Violas._ Erin swallows hard, her limbic system overwhelmed by emotion.She looks up at the engineer who’s watching her, slightly worried.

 

“You like it then?” she ventures, her forced smile strangely tentative.Erin splutters a small laughs through her tears.

 

“I…love it…” she swallows.“My grandmother…she used to…” Erin can’t go on, remembering the one adult in her life who’d ever believed her when she talked about the ghost.Later - much later - she will find a way to tell Holtzmann about those Sunday afternoons in her grandmother’s kitchen, the delicate teacups, the perfect pink cake that was only ever made for Erin.The one day of the week that she wasn’t disbelieved or her stories pathologised.Sundays were the one thing in her childhood - along with Abby - that kept her holding on through the taunting and the psychologist’s probing.“How did you know?” she whispers instead.Holtz shrugs one narrow shoulder.

 

“I got up this morning and the recipe was sitting on top of my tools,” she explains, toying with the perfectly aligned book spines on the edge of Erin’s desk. “Just the one page, from some ancient recipe book.I thought it was Patty having a sugar craving,” she grins.“Then it turned up tucked in between every page of my notebook, then in my shirt pocket, so I figured it must be the ghost,” her voice is nonchalant.

 

Erin stares at her, then down at the small cake again.She’s not sure she understands.Holtz is still standing near her, close enough she can smell a faint hint of machine oil and warm cinnamon above the pink frosting.The blonde is pushing at the book spines, moving them all ever so slightly out of order.She takes a deep breath and says in a rush.

 

“I thought- I thought the cake must be meant for you, because I couldn’t stop thinking about- and I knew you were angry at me for the….you know…with- with the lips.And I wanted-because I couldn’t stand that you might…and you should _always_ be happy-“ she blurts fiercely.“And because it’s pink,” she concludes, with something approaching relief.Erin just stares at her, eyes narrowed, unsure.

 

“You think the ghost…wanted you to make me a cake…?”

 

“Yes,” Holtzmann nods rapidly.She nods again to herself for a moment, meets Erin’s eyes and nods again, formally.Then she turns and walks back toward her bench.

 

“Holtz,” Erin says softly.The engineer spins on her heel, off-balance.“Come and have some cake with me.”Holtzmann’s smile makes her breath catch.

 

“It’s really good,” she promises.“I ate maybe a _lot_ of icing.You’re going to puke pink.”Erin laughs.

 

 

* * *

 

 

For the first time in a long time, maybe ever, if she thinks about it, Erin and Holtzmann just get to be.There’s no obnoxious flirting, no project work, no dancing around each other and (mostly) no ghosts.They sit side by side on Erin’s desk, legs swinging, eating cake and drinking soda. 

 

Holtz tells her stories - carefully tailored to make Erin snort with laughter - about her childhood inventions.She tells her what it was like to go to school, aged 13, with half her bangs and both eyebrows singed off from one of her first explosions.Her parents banned her from the basement and forcibly enrolled her in ballet lessons.She slides off the table and into a series of dance impressions of how she behaved in a tutu until Erin chokes on her soda collapsing back onto her elbows with giggles. 

 

“That was the first time I ran away,” Holtz lets slip as she hoists herself back up beside Erin.The physicist sits up and opens her mouth to ask because this is too much, too close; she’s so happy.She wants to know every single thing there is to know. 

 

Holtzmann catches her expression and breaks into a grin.She leans in close and with her thumb, swipes a trace of pink icing off from just above Erin’s lip.Erin’s flush deepens when the engineer deliberately licks it into her own mouth and regards her with a devastating smirk.It’s only then Erin realises how deftly Holtz has diverted her attention.

 

The front door bangs.Neither of them moves away as they hear Abby and Patty moving around downstairs, the hum of their voices reaching up to into their quiet moment.Erin slowly realises that Holtz has still not looked away from her face.Her eyelashes drop and she sees how close they’re sitting.Holtz’s hand - surprisingly delicate despite the traces of mechanical grease - is supporting her upright on the desk.If Erin moved her pinky finger even a millimetre, their hands would be touching. 

 

“Erin?Holtzy?Are you two alright up there?”Abby’s voice, slightly muffled, rings up the stairwell.Erin remembers how to breathe.She slowly slides off the desk.

 

“We’re fine,” she calls back.There’s a slight rattling sound.

 

“Is there a reason the lab door is locked?”Abby’s voice sounds…weird.Beside Erin, Holtz jumps off the desk.

 

“What lab door?” she asks, moving quickly toward the stairs.Erin blinks.She dashes after the engineer only to find her stopped at the bottom of the stairs, where a heavy wooden door has materialised, in what was previously an open space. 

 

“Mother _fucker,”_ Abby’s voice sounds through the timber.“Are you alright?!Patty?PATTY!Freakin' ghost has Erin and Holtz trapped!”

 

“Oh _hell_ no!” they hear ring out.Three seconds later there’s a blast of green light that shakes the door.Holtz’s hands reach out and grab Erin backwards instantly.She cackles gleefully, a standard Holtzmann response to danger.

 

“A little warning next time,” she shouts, as they back all the way up the stairs during the deafening bangs and thumps that sound out while Abby and Patty both attempt to blast and beat the door down. 

 

Twenty minutes later, the door is still unbudging. 

 

“Do you have any food up there?” Abby calls up, panting, conceding defeat.

 

“For an army!” Holtzmann assures her.Erin is pretty sure this means the engineer’s endless stock of junk food.She hopes the ghost doesn’t plan to imprison them forever.She doesn’t fancy getting scurvy.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Erin sits on the bottom stair, munching on pringles.

 

“Tell me what you guys found at the library,” she asks Abby, who’s sitting leaning on the other side of the door.Erin suspects she’s eating Chinese take-out.Abby tactfully doesn’t mention it. 

 

“Dead end,” her friend announces with a huff.“Our friendly local angel carver died on a trip back to Italy in peaceful old age.He doesn’t seem like our pissy baby ghost friend here.”

 

“That’s too bad,” Erin frowns.There’s something nagging at the edges of her memory.Sculpted angels…carved in stone.Suddenly she drops the can of pringles.“Abby!” she shouts.“The graveyard!”

 

There’s a clatter from behind as Holtzmann drops her tools and skitters down the stairs to sit beside her, eyes wide.

 

“St. Catherine’s?” she splutters, leaning forward with her hand on the physicist’s forearm, clutching tight.Erin stares at her.

 

“Yes!It’s like, five minutes walk from here.There’s a grave there…toward the back….it’s…old, a winged baby angel on top.I was there, like…two nights ago, just before the ghost turned up.I can’t believe I didn’t connect it earlier!”

 

There’s an excited conference on the other side of the door.

 

“Whose grave is it?!” Patty demands.Erin is on her feet.

 

“I don’t know!” she cries in frustration.“Can you go find out?!” 

 

“On it!” Patty’s voice is already disappearing down the hall.

 

“Stay safe!”Abby follows suit.

 

A couple of minutes later there’s the sound of wheels shrieking as the ghostbuster’s car squeals off out of the garage and down the road.

 

Holtz and Erin are left, side by side on the bottom step, staring at the locked door. 

 

“How do you know the graveyard?” Erin thinks to ask.Holtz bends down, focussing intently on rubbing at a spot on the top of her boot.

 

“I go there sometimes,” she says softly.Erin waits.“Just to walk,” she concludes and Erin thinks that’s all she’s going to get.“At night,” the engineer adds, so quietly the physicist almost misses it.“Most nights.When I can’t sleep.”

 

Erin stares at her, blood pounding in her ears.

 

“ _That’s_ where you go at night?” she asks. 

 

“Mmm,” is the full response she gets.Holtz is already on her feet and halfway up the stairs.“Do you want dinner?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s almost been a full hour and a half and the other two ghostbusters are yet to return.In that time, Holtz has refused to engage in any further graveyard talk, instead cranking up her tunes and banishing Erin to the one beanbag of any comfort that has found its way into the second floor lab, while she “makes dinner.”

 

Being that the process involves the use of a blowtorch, Erin decides it’s better not to watch, and tries to concentrate on a book.It’s not working though.Her mind is too full.

 

“Ta-da!” Holtzmann calls out, and when Erin stands up, the engineer is taking a bow next to her workbench, which has been cleared of its usual chaos and covered with clear plastic sheeting as a makeshift tablecloth.The bench is set with open packets of pretzels, crisps, crackers and shockingly, a large bowl of fresh salad.“What?” Holtz smirks.“You think I don’t eat vegetables?” 

 

There’s also a bottle of crisply chilled white wine.When Erin gapes, Holtz reveals the small refrigerator amongst the gazillion more sinister appliances in the lab.Dessert comes in a foil cup of warm melted chocolate, “for dipping.”Erin presumes she means the gummy bears. 

 

“Where did you find the candles?” she asks.Holtz blinks.

 

“What candles?”That’s when all the overhead lights blow out, leaving nothing but the flickering light of the two candles in ornate silver holders sitting on the table.Erin shivers.“Errrr, thanks, baby ghost?” Holtz shrugs awkwardly.Erin thinks the engineer’s cheeks seem to flush, before they sit down opposite each other to eat. 

 

She pours them both a generous serve of wine, which Erin notes is delicious, despite the slightly salty aftertaste of drinking it from trimmed down empty pringle containers.

 

The silence that descends between them seems to alternate between warmly comfortable and heatedly awkward.Making eye contact with the annoyingly beautiful blonde opposite her in the romantic candlelight is becoming increasingly difficult.It’s even more difficult to let it go when their eyes do catch.Erin can hardly swallow and Holtz is uncharacteristically quiet.

 

“Holtz,” Erin finally manages, after a large gulp of wine for courage.“Who are Alice and Elena and Caterina…and Helen?”The engineer’s eyes go large.She considers Erin and for a second the physicist thinks she looks a little frightened.Then she smirks and scoffs.

 

“Oh you know…just women,” she winks suggestively.Out of the corner of her eye Erin sees a faint gleam of light.She turns her head just in time to see a small flaming arrow hit the floor and blaze out.They both jump to their feet in alarm.There’s a faint giggle echoing from somewhere near the ceiling.In an instant Holtzmann has grabbed up her proton pistol from the floor by her feet and she’s shooting in the direction of the sound.

 

Erin races for her own pistol, only to remember frantically she’d left it on the first floor, locked now out of reach.She hears a shout from Holtz before a rush of heat narrowly misses her right ear and another arrow sets one of her textbooks alight.Leaping quickly, she grabs for the lab’s fire extinguisher instead, pointing and quickly blasting the fire with foam.

 

It’s silent for a moment, and then the giggle sounds again.Holtz grabs for Erin and they freeze in the middle of the room together.Keeping Erin firmly at her back, she shoots in the direction of the sound.This time she connects, and a chubby winged baby lights up, wrapped in the ray.It giggles again, and slips out of the proton ray like it’s just a game.Invisible again, the ghost sends another arrow raining down.Erin shoots at the flame with the extinguisher before it can ignite the plastic table covering.

 

“What’s happening?” she cries.“What does it _want?_ ”Suddenly there’s the sound of running footsteps in the hall and the other ghostbusters are banging frantically on the lab door.

 

“Susannah Marie Carlisle!” Patty is shouting.“She was a matchmaker!Her advertisement in the local newspaper featured a sketch of cupid!She was murdered in 1857 by a jealous suitor whose fiancee left him for another man.You got a seriously pissed off matchmaking poltergeist in there!” 

 

“Are you alright?!” Abby sounds frantic.“I heard you firing!”

 

“Fire!” Erin shouts back in agreement.“She’s shooting flaming arrows at us!” _Swoosh_ , another arrow knocks over one of the candles and both women swing around in unison as Erin blasts at it out with foam. 

 

“Holtzmann!” Patty bellows.“Are you a goddamn idiot?You’ve got a ghostly matchmakin' cupid shooting flaming arrows at you!How much more of a sign do you need? _Freaking tell her!!!!!!”_

 

 _Swoosh,_ the arrow comes down from the left this time.Erin blasts it out quickly.

 

“Tell who what?!” she cries - another arrow coming raining down in quick succession - spinning around and destroying the flames.“Holtz!” 

 

The engineer looks far more afraid than Erin has ever seen her before.And this woman has stared down the apocalypse with a lopsided grin in place. 

 

“Alice…” she blurts. “Elena…all of them…they’re dead.They’re just names on graves,” Holtz grabs her arm and pulls her out of the path of another fiery arrow.Racing now she stutters on.“I told Patty where I went at night…and she sorta…guessed why.It’s- it’s a joke we have, to pretend they’re all my lovers.I think she hoped…that maybe it would make you jealous and- _duck!”_

 

Flames lick past Holtz’s hair and Erin smells burning.Dropping the extinguisher she pats frantically at the blonde waves.Holtz is unscathed but her eyes are huge.She seems to be waiting for some kind of response.More arrows fly and they spin together, moving the extinguisher in an arc.

 

“Holtz!” she cries again.“What does this have to do with the ghost?!What does teasing me have to do with anything?”Another giggle flies by, this time in motion, almost in her ear and they spin again.“Why do you go to the graveyard?” she flails, trying to reach for something that connects to the ghost that seems to be doing its best to burn them alive. 

 

“I-” the engineer stutters, seemingly frozen. 

 

“ _Holtz!”_ Patty shouts from behind the door.“For the love of god, woman!Man _up!”_

 

Holtz stands very still.An arrow connects with a pile of papers and explodes in a whoosh of flames.Erin shoots the extinguisher and when she turns, Holtz grabs her by both arms.

 

“I - I can’t sleep at night…because of you!I can’t…think clearly!I can’t stay here under the same roof as you sometimes because I’m scared of what I might do.So I go out…I walk around in the dark, in the graveyard instead,” she’s squeezing Erin’s arms tightly as if she’s about to fly away.Another arrow whips past.Erin just stares at her, lost, but unable to break her stare.Holtz takes a deep, shaky breath.“Physics,” she starts, “is the study of the movement of-“

 

“GET TO THE POINT HOLTZY!” Patty thumps her fists on the door.

 

“I’m in _love_ with you!” Holtz explodes, shouting towards the door.“Erin, I mean! _You_ …" she squeezes Erin's shoulders for dear life.  "I… _love_ you, okay?!”

 

Erin freezes still.Holtz’s eyes are terrified and the physicist finally clicks that it’s not the ghost that scares her.For a second the room seems frozen and then _swoosh_ the arrows start again.Erin still can’t move, stricken to the spot.

 

“For the love of god!” Holtz squeaks, letting go of Erin, grabbing the extinguisher and shooting down the circle of flames starting around them.“What more do you _want?”_

 

“I want- I want to try something,” Erin’s voice is high pitched and wavering.

 

When Holtzmann spins back towards her again, Erin reaches in, sliding her hands into her hair and kissing her.Holtz stutters in a breath and Erin breathes with her, moving in and kissing her harder.The extinguisher is trapped between their bodies, still clutched to the engineer’s chest.Erin barely notices.She forgets to think about ghosts, or fiery deaths, or arrows or anything at all.Time freezes.The only thing that matters is the warm mouth of her nuclear engineer, hungrily kissing her back.

 

“Oh my god, what’s _happening?!”_ Abby’s voice shouts through the door a few minutes later, and Erin pulls back, a small gasped laugh escaping her.Holtzmann puts down the fire extinguisher.There are no more arrows, no more errant giggles.The lights are back on and the room feels warm again, though Erin isn’t sure if that’s just her, burning up from the inside.

 

“I think we’ve got it covered now, captain,” announces Holtzmann, an astonished grin reaching from ear to ear. 

 

“But maybe don’t come up for a few more minutes,” Erin calls quickly, her arms still around the engineer's neck.“I think it’s best if we’re sure.”Holtz’s mouth when she pulls her back in to another heated kiss is still smiling.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just a fluffy fluffball of an ending, y'all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to complete! #Life Thank you all for reading.

 

  

“You’re not having sex up there are you?”Abby’s voice calls out cautiously, a few minutes later. “Because she’s an 1850’s ghost, so that might be overkill.”

 

Erin practically leaps backwards from Holtzmann’s mouth, her face flaming deep red.

 

“Oh m-my god,” she stutters.“No, we are _not.”_

 

Holtz regards her with intense interest, her head cocked to the side. She shrugs one shoulder beckoningly, daring her.Erin’s eyes widen.

 

“You can come up now!” she calls hastily to their friends.Holtz’s smirk is off the charts. 

 

Abby and Patty race up the stairs.They skid to a halt and survey both the damaged room - scorch marks and extinguisher foam everywhere - and their intact colleagues - standing cautiously at least six feet apart, with matching awkwardly goofy expressions on their faces.

 

“Hell _yes!”_   Patty starts to laugh.“Get it, girl!” in two strides she’s wrapped Holtz up in a hug, clapping her on the back and squeezing her tight.Erin’s jaw drops and she looks awkwardly at Abby, who only chuckles at her expression, holding her at arm’s length to examine her.

 

“You look surprisingly happy for someone who only just escaped getting barbecued by a ghost,” she observes.“What bold new ghostbusting move did you pull this time?” she teases, clearly knowing the answer.

 

“Kissed me,” Holtzmann feels the need to elaborate anyway.“ _Totally_ kissed me,” she says again to the room at large, her grin manic.Erin gives up all pretence at normality and sends double fingerguns giddily in her direction. 

 

Patty and Abby exchange glances.Abby sighs and shakes her head helplessly.

 

“Made for each other,” Patty says drily. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

After the four of them have largely cleaned up the lab and Abby has paced around fifty-eight times with her PKE meter with no signs of any kind of ghostly presence remaining, Holtzmann stands in the centre of the lab and determinedly intertwines her fingers with the physicist’s.

 

“Probs just gonna go and make out with Erin a whole bunch now,” she informs the room.It seems that pushing at the tightly wound physicist’s buttons is still a pastime that hasn’t gotten old for Holtzmann, despite her recent declaration.She punctuates this announcement with a sharp two fingered farewell salute to the other ghostbusters and tows her cringing lab partner out onto the rooftop.

 

“Was that really necessary?” Erin asks her, as Holtzmann pulls her up to the balcony ledge in the cool night air and backs her up against a column.

 

“I don’t know,” Holtz replies.“Was this?”She tilts Erin’s head back and kisses her.It’s messy, wet, dirty and full of tongue, and the physicist is sweating and thoroughly diverted by the time she stops. 

 

Holtz surveys the result of her kiss with an extremely satisfied expression, like she’s just tested out a hypothesis and proved herself correct.Erin’s chest is heaving, her pupils dilated and her mouth hanging slightly open.Her hands have somehow found their way up under Holtzmann’s top, gripping hungrily at her shockingly soft skin.She whimpers slightly at the loss of Holtz’s mouth and the engineer regards her so frankly that she squirms.

 

She leans in again, softer this time and presses wet kisses along the curve of Erin’s throat.The physicist nearly breaks in half, worrying briefly whether she might be the first person on record to straight up die from desire.Holtzmann pulls back.

 

“Hey ghost girl,” she starts, her tone conversational, but with a faintly detectable husk to her voice.“You didn’t just kiss me to get the poltergeist to vamoose did you?” 

 

Erin’s stomach drops.

 

“What?!No!” she quickly corrects her, shocked.“I wouldn’t use you like that,” she protests.Holtzmann nods rapidly.

 

“Uh-huh.  Why’d you do it then?” she asks, her eyes focussing on her own fingers, toying with the waist of Erin’s pants. 

 

“Because-” _Oh…!_ Erin takes a deep breath, focussing hard on the engineer’s lowered lashes.“BecauseI’minlovewithyoutoo,” she lets the breath out, feeling faintly dizzy along with it.

 

Holtz looks up, and it’s only then Erin catches the mischief sparking in her blue eyes.

 

“I kinda figured,” she smirks.“I just wanted to hear you say it.Want to come back to my place and get extremely naked?”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Erin, of course, declines.This isn’t even their first date yet, and maybe she’s been out of the dating game for a while but she’s pretty sure she remembers how this stuff is supposed to go…and because, you know...she’s a _lady._

 

Of course, Holtzmann is too, at least technically speaking, and so when the engineer walks her home - through the lab and down the stairs - to her front door and Erin invites her in to say goodnight a little bit more and then somehow winds up kissing her furiously up against said door with Holtz’s talented fingers inside her bra, things get understandably blurry.

 

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the goodnight kiss takes a turn into something that involves both her blouse and her pants hitting the floor and Holtzmann’s deliciously messy dirty kisses starting to deviate from her mouth to goodnight kiss her throat as well, then her left breast - the cup of her bra shoved out the way with no respect at all for lace - to hungry goodnight kisses marking her hipbone and then the wettest hottest kiss of all involving Erin’s right leg slungover the engineer’s shoulder as she spasms and her body wracks and her head falls back against the door and if this kiss includes fingers as well, twisting beautifully roughly inside her, then, well, _she’s only human okay?_

 

And morals are just ideas that are subjectively malleable and sometimes irrelevant and not rules or scientific laws in any way at all and if after she comes she pulls her engineer into bed with her and spends the rest of their first night destroying the sheets with her love then no one else needs to know except for Holtzmann - now lying limp, glowing, hyperventilating and trembling beside her - and very much hopefully not her neighbours. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

If goodnight kisses are a frankly mind-blowing addition to Erin’s life then good morning kisses are even more so.Even though she’d hardly been allowed any sleep at all that night, she still experiences a sharp shock of happiness when she wakes to find Holtzmann’s heated naked body still wrapped around hers come sunrise.Judging by the slow wickedness of Holtz’s grin when she lazily opens her eyes and meets her gaze, Erin is willing to concede that perhaps no one in this bed is going to make it into work on time that morning.

 

Out in their workspace nearing lunchtime, Abby fixes Patty with a firm glare and reminds her that _she_ was the one to suggest in the first place that the ghostbusters were all in need of holidays and getting laid.

 

“What about you, mama?” Patty raises her eyebrows.“You don’t got needs?”

 

Abby just huffs, an awkward expression crossing her face.

 

“Oh please,” she glances surreptitiously across the room.“I’m getting my needs met just fine.”Kevin raises his head from the jenga tower he’s been building with his stapler, holepunch, several pens and the (ringing) phone.  He blinks at her owlishly in a way she figures is supposed to be a wink and Abby thinks his goofy grin in her direction is starting to look worryingly lovesick. Though frankly, with their receptionist it’s hard to tell.Hopefully he’s just thinking about bunny rabbits, or donuts, or how great his hair looks this morning.“Juuuuuust fine,” she repeats to calm herself, while Patty just nods and shrugs, none the wiser.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s late in the afternoon and Holtzmann is still kissing Erin, in the shower this time.She’s all wet plastered hair and extremely focussed blue eyes and Erin can’t get enough of her mouth.

 

“I’m gonna take you on a date, Erin Gilbert,” Holtz announces.Erin laughs out loud. 

 

“You probably should,” she agrees, sliding her hands down the engineer’s chest.

 

Which is how - more than an hour later - Erin finds herself stepping out the fire station doors, her face still faintly flaming from the wolf whistles and _heyyyyyy lover-birds_ that had rung out from their colleagues as they’d ducked through the living room on the way out the door.Holtzmann had looked as cheshire cat as any human ever has, and Erin was pretty sure she’d heard the sound of her high-fiving someone behind her back as they passed.

 

“Do you think they _heard_ us?” Erin squeaks in horror, when they reach the sidewalk.Holtz regards her seriously.

 

“You they heard for sure,” she informs her.A smug smile sneaks over her face.

 

“Oh god,” Erin is so embarrassed she takes a few minutes to realise that Holtzmann hasn’t even told her where she’s taking her.She’s even more sidetracked when she realises Holtz is casually holding her hand in the early evening sunlight as they walk .She thinks maybe she wants someone to pinch her.When they reach their destination, she balks.“Are you sure this is a good idea?” she hesitates at the gate.

 

“Aren’t all my ideas?” Holtzmann grins.“Ladies first.”

 

“That doesn’t even make sense in this context,” Erin rolls her eyes, but accepts the wrought iron gate being held for her and steps into the cemetery. 

 

It’s quiet and abandoned as it almost always is.The buzz of the city fades a little as they step under the willows.The sun is just beginning to lower, casting a warm pink-gold glaze to the sky.Holtzmann takes her hand again.

 

“Thought I’d introduce you,” she cocks her head toward one of the graves as they wander. 

 

_Alice Atkinson_

_1812 - 1837_

_This lovely bud, so young, so fair,_

_Called hence by early doom,_

_Just came to show how sweet a flower_

_In Paradise would bloom_

 

“Sounds like a total fox, am I right?” Holtzmann pokes Erin in the ribs. 

 

“Holtz!” Erin’s jaw drops.  "She's dead!"

 

“Still jealous huh?Wait til you meet Caterina…”

 

“You spent a lot of time here,” Erin observes softly.The engineer grimaces.

 

“Well...I’ve been…pining over you for a long time,” she admits.“Pretty much since you walked in.Before, really,” she side-eyes Erin.“I mean, you’re pretty cute in that book jacket photo.All that tweed…” 

 

Erin ignores at least half of what the engineer has just said, focusing on the image of Holtzmann wandering this graveyard alone, thinking of her, while the whole time Erin was lying in bed trying desperately to control her crush.She tugs Holtz in and kisses her, heatedly. 

 

“Hmm, possessive huh?” Holtz pulls back and nods toward Alice Atkinson’s headstone.“Don’t worry, I think she gets your point.” The next time she pulls back from the kiss, Erin is shaking her head.

 

“This is so inappropriate,” she groans, and Holtz cackles as they walk on.

 

“How about you, what were you doing here?” Holtz is looking at her curiously.“When you summoned a poltergeist and sicced it on me?” 

 

“Same thing,” she shrugs.“Being sad.Wanting.”She glares at the engineer suddenly.“Wanting someone I thought I couldn’t have because they had a whole string of other lovers,” she elbows Holtz sharply in retrospect.The engineer snickers.

 

“Dead ones,” she smirks.“Pretty fitting for a ghostbuster.Patty’s idea really worked on you, huh?” 

 

“I may have said some kinda…miserable things,” Erin realises.“Which might be why the ghost followed me home.Oh god, Holtz, I’m sorry,” she winces, stopping to brush her fingers over the graze still evident on the engineer’s forehead. Holtz just laughs.

 

“Please.More likely it was me stomping around wailing _why, Erin Gilbert, why won’t you just let me love you?"_   Holtz does a dramatic reenactment, her eyes wild, her arms flailing as she drapes herself over a tombstone.“ _I am in desperate need of the services of a poltergeist,"_  she shouts, _"to lock us in lab cupboards together and set us on fire if I’m going to have one single hope of getting my hands inside all of that sexy, impenetrable tweed!”_ Erin cracks up despite herself. 

 

“I guess the ghost didn’t credit you with much game then, huh?”

 

“I have plenty of game!” Holtz scrambles back to her feet, shocked.“I was just sparing you out of respect!You are my _colleague,”_ she opens her eyes wide.“That was me being respectful and gallant,” she takes hold of Erin and bends her backward at the waist, arms surprisingly strong.“I had to be subtle, play the long game,” she murmurs, leaning in and kissing her thoroughly.Erin thinks back on months of suggestive come-ons, dazzling smirks, flirtatious winks, double entendres and bump’n’grind lab dancing.

 

“God help me,” she murmurs.“Come on,” she leads this time, and they stand together and look down at the grave.  The stone carved cupid watches silently over them.

 

_Susannah Marie Carlisle_

_1811 - 1857_

_Love must be as much a light_

_As it is a flame_

 

“I guess that explains the arrows,” Holtzmann quips.Erin falls quiet.

 

“That’s…actually kind of beautiful,” she says, surprised by sudden tears pricking her eyes as she turns the words over in her mind.Holtz looks at her for a long moment then turns to face the tombstone.

 

“Susie, babycakes,” she starts.“Your methods were questionable and I can maybe see why they got you killed-“

 

“ _Holtz!_ Are you _trying_ to get us haunted again?”

 

“- but that just makes you a woman after my own heart,” Holtzmann continues.“You got Erin to make out with me _and_ confess her love - a sentiment which as you know, I very smoothly and romantically declared first, like a rock star.Basically, you totally crushed it.We feel that your work here is very much done, and maybe you should take a well deserved lie-down, for at least another century or so.We cool?”

 

Erin looks around for something to lay on the grave.Holtz manages to scare up a clutch of wild daisies, and Erin places them carefully in front of the thoroughly chipped cupid statue. 

 

“Thank you for helping me find this," she says simply, sliding her fingers back through Holtzmann's and squeezing her hand.“It is without a doubt, the best thing anyone has ever done for me.Even if it nearly included dying horribly in a lab fire full of _highly_ combustible and unstable materials.Umm...so really...you rest in peace down there, okay?”She fingerguns at the baby cupid and Holtz grins, snatches up their intertwined fingers and kisses them as they turn and walk away.

 

“Well,” Erin says, as they reach the gate.“That was an appropriately weird first date.” 

 

“Cool,” Holtzmann replies.“Cos for the second half I brought third, fourth and fifth wheels.”She waves out at Abby, Patty and Kevin who are in the distance, walking along the sidewalk towards them.“Come on ghost girl, we’re going dancing.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The grave epitaphs aren't by me! Alice's is a random Victorian era one and Susannah's is from Henry David Thoreau.]
> 
> This has been super fun and silly and just a big hi to everyone else who is in the same freefall love spiral for this fandom and thank you to all you awesome people who are writing adorable and joyful and amazing and glorious fics for us all. I <3 you.


End file.
